Istanbul: Part Two

Our last day in Istanbul was a busy one.  We hit up the Hagia Sofia, Topkapi Palace again (for a tour), Taksim Square, our own food tour, and a Turkish Bath.  Which was as strange and memorable an experience as I've ever had.  Here are some more pics!

We're outside the Hagia Sofia, which is a chuch turned mosque turned incredibly popular museum.

This thing was constructed in 537 as a Greek Orthodox Church, then it turned into a Roman Catholic Church, then finally a mosque.  So the insides have tons of different architecture and paintings and exposed walls/artwork from each of these times that the building served. 

This was a famous mural with Mary and Baby Jesus, Constantine, and I'm blanking on the last guy.  Sorry.

They also had a couple of large tombs of the former Sultans, which were kinda cool.

We then crossed the Strait again to see Taksim Square - a centrally located area on the north side of the city surrounded by restaurants, shops, hotels, and some statues commemorating Turkish independence in 1923.  It also happens to be the sight of some major protests and riots as of late.  (The Thursday before we got there, this place was filled with protesters upset about May Day, which caused tear gas and water cannons to be launched everywhere.  Cool!)  We for some reason decided to go there anyway and check it out before we went on our own Istanbul food tour.

We did see a TON of police surrounding the square, just in case things got hairy.  These guys had plastic shields, huge guns, and a truck with water cannons nearby.  Cool!

Our first stop on our Turkish food tour was a bakery and tea shop for Turkish Kunefe: a soft baked cheesy dessert crusted with shredded phyllo dough and topped with pistachio.  Yum!  The Turkish tea and coffee are also famous and VERY strong. 

We also got lunch at a hole-in-the-wall place visited by Anthony Bourdain and written about by many food bloggers.  Anthony called this a "tastebud torpedo" and he wasn't lying.  Lamb on lamb on lamb with a paprika sauce filled with veggies and parsley...oh man.  It was SO. GOOD.

Turkish Pizza, Lahmacun, is also an Instanbul staple, and we stopped by another teeny tiny place recommended by a friend for this afternoon delight.  Flatbread with a variety of meats and sausages, topped with a fried egg.

One more delicious Turkish dinner followed by a rooftop view of the Blue Mosque ended our day!

Except...wait.  I forgot to tell you about the Turkish bath.  This was a RREEAALLLLL trip.  We'd heard that this was an interesting part of the culture, something you have to do, it's not that bad, you should try it, etc.  So we went for it.  I'm super modest (meaning I don't even let my own mother in the dressing room with me at Nordstrom) and I'm not a huge fan of saunas, but I figured...what the hell.  We went to the Cemberlitas Hamami, one of the oldest baths in the city, paid for a 35 Lira spa experience (soaking in the sauna/bath + a scrub/massage from a Turkish attendant), and went in to gender separate areas.

We stripped down in a small cubby (luckily I'd brought my own bathing suit bottoms, though they provide you with something similar), and you wrap the dishtowel size cover they give you around your bare top half.  They give you clogs so you don't slip, and you wander, confused, down to a room housed with bare-breasted women.  Tons of them.  They usher you into another room, and suddenly...you're in the bath.  An attendant comes up and tries to grab your towel while ushering you to a giant marble table to lay down on.  You politely tell her that no, you'd prefer to keep the towel wrapped around you, she shrugs, sits you town on the marble slab, and proceeds to rip the towel out of your death grip.  Then you are virtually naked next to your friend and you want to die of shame and embarrassment.  You avoid eye contact with everyone.  It doesn't help that you're the one laid out right by the door, so any woman who enters or exits gets a clear view of your nearly naked body.  Awesome.

After 10 minutes of soaking on the steamy marble platform, the 250 pound Turkish woman in a black bikini walks over and proceeds to scrub your skin with something resembling sand paper.  I'm talking rubbing your skin raw and doing full clockwise/counterclockwise rotations around your boobs.  She then proceeds to waterboard you by pouring water directly on your face and you feel like you're drowning.  She then scrubs your face with the sandpaper and literally sticks her fingers in your eyeballs to remove your eye makeup caked there.  She leaves the stinging soapy suds all over your face and goes to get another bucket for waterboarding while you try to keep your sight and struggle to breathe  through the suds.  She then leads you over to a sink nearby, sits you on the ledge, washes your hair and waterboards you some more, and you're done.  She points to the jacuzzi and tells you to go in there to soak but really, you just wanna get the hell outta there.  So you walk back naked into the other room with all the other naked women, find a huge towel, attempt to locate your dignity, and hightail back up to the cubby to regain your composure.

I waited in the lounge area for Drew to finish up, and his experience was similar.  They had a small modest covering over their business and their baths were equipped with giant Turkish men using their elbows to reallllllly rub you down.  He said you could hear men grunting in pain all around him from the force of the Turkish men's massages.  Yikes!

The spa experience was hilarious and humiliating but something I'm glad I did, and it wrapped up a great trip overall.  I already miss the food and we found ourselves oddly welcoming the Muslim call to prayer 5 times a day by the end.  If you ever find yourself in Eastern Europe, make sure to stop by Istanbul!